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Martin was born in Kokomo in Howard County in north central Indiana to Ethel (née Dunlap) and Strother Douglas Martin.[2] For a short time, the Martins moved to San Antonio, Texas, but soon returned to Indiana. As a child, he excelled at swimming and diving; he was nicknamed "T-Bone Martin" because of his diving expertise. At 17, he won the National Junior Springboard Diving Championship. He served as a swimming instructor in the United States Navy during World War II and was a member of the diving team at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He entered the adult National Springboard Diving competition in hopes of gaining a berth on the U.S. Olympic team but finished third in the competition.[3]

After the war, Martin moved to Los Angeles, California and worked as a swimming instructor and as a swimming extra in water scenes in films.[3] He earned bit roles in a number of pictures and soon gained frequent character roles in films and television through the 1950s, having appeared in such programs as the westernanthology series, Frontier on NBC and the syndicatedAmerican Civil War drama Gray Ghost. He was cast in 1955 as Landry Kersh in the episode "Shadow of God" on the ABC religion anthology series, Crossroads. He gave a memorable performance as a man with learning difficulties in the "Cooter" episode written by Sam Peckinpah in the first season of Gunsmoke (1955).

In 1967, Martin played Arizona miner Ed Schieffelin in the episode "Silver Tombstone" of the syndicatedtelevision seriesDeath Valley Days.[5] Martin's distinctive, reedy voice and menacing demeanor made him ideal for villainous roles in many of the best-known westerns of the 1950s and 1960s, including The Horse Soldiers and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. His lunatic turn in the latter film as Lee Marvin's character's insanely sadistic henchman, gleefully giggling in anticipation of each horrendous atrocity, remains a particularly memorable performance. Martin also excelled in comedy, playing an incompetent "Indian agent" in the John Wayne film, McLintock! (1963) and as a hapless horse trader in the 1969 film, True Grit (1969).

By the late 1960s, Martin was almost as well-known a figure as many top-billed stars. In 1967, the same year as his role in Cool Hand Luke, he appeared in the episode "A Mighty Hunter Before the Lord" of NBC's The Road West series starring Barry Sullivan. In 1972, he appeared as James Garner's uncle in the "Zacharia" episode of NBC's Nichols. He also had a pronounced physical and vocal resemblance to playwright Tennessee Williams and occasionally parodied him, notably in the "Baby Fat" episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show.

Martin made many guest appearances on Gunsmoke, including the two-part episode "Island in the Desert," in which he portrayed a crazy desert hermit named Ben Snow. He also made many guest appearances on Perry Mason throughout the nine-year run from 1957–1966, including a horseman in the 1962 episode "The Case of the Fickle Filly", a college employee in "The Case of the Brazen Bequest" and the murderer in "The Case of the Drowsy Mosquito". In 1963, he appeared in Glynis Johns' short-lived comedy series Glynis in the episode "Ten Cents a Dance." In 1965, Martin appeared in the episode "Most Precious Gold" of the NBC comedy/drama series Kentucky Jones, starring Dennis Weaver. In 1965, he guest-starred as Meeker in the episode "Return to Lawrence" on the ABC western The Legend of Jesse James. In 1966, he guest-starred in the Lost In Space episode "Blast Off Into Space" as a gritty mining engineer. On a Gilligan's Island episode, Martin played a man living supposedly alone on the island for a radio show contest. He also starred in a two- part The Rockford Files 1977 episode as T.T. Flowers The Trees, the Bees and T. T. Flowers, an episode that took on urban invasion and the environment.

One of his last acting jobs was as host of Saturday Night Live on April 19, 1980. In one of the skits, Martin played the strict owner of a French language camp for children, based on his role as the prison captain from the film, Cool Hand Luke. He even paraphrased his most famous line from the film, "What we have here is failure to communicate BI-LINGUALLY!" In another, he played a terminally ill man who videotaped his last will and testament. During his monologue, he again did his Tennessee Williams impression. This episode was supposed to be rerun during the summer of 1980 but was pulled and replaced with another episode due to his death.